Bipolar disorder cited in man's fatal stabbing

Capital murder defendant Stephen Vogt waits for jurors to file into the 290th state District Courtroom Monday afternoon as his trial starts for the 2009 robbery and stabbing death of an acquaintance who had been helping him move.

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Since childhood, Stephen Jonathan Vogt has heard voices in his head, his attorneys told jurors Monday as his capital murder trial began for the robbery and brutal stabbing three years ago of an acquaintance who unwittingly had helped him run away.

“Bipolar disorder is a huge factor in this case,” Michael Gross said during an opening statement. “To try to keep the voices out of his head (as a child), he would wrap his head in duct tape.”

Because prosecutors have opted not to seek the death penalty, Vogt, 22, will receive an automatic life sentence if jurors in the 290th state District Court find him guilty of capital murder. Co-defendant James Garza, 20, received life without parole last November.

Vogt appeared to shake nervously throughout the proceedings Monday.

He and Garza were arrested on shoplifting charges in Glenwood Springs, Colo., less than three weeks after Mario Raygoza Jr., 19, was found face down outside a South Side apartment complex. Near him was a bloody steak knife that investigators later traced back to a butcher block belonging to Vogt's grandmother, prosecutor David Lunan told jurors.

The duo had lured Raygoza, an H-E-B employee who was still wearing his uniform, to a dark parking lot at the complex after asking him to help them load their belongings from their parents' homes into his car, authorities said.

They told Raygoza they were moving into an apartment, but in reality they were hoping to run away and start a new life together because their parents didn't approve of them spending time together, Lunan said. They saw Raygoza's 2008 Dodge Avenger as the key to doing so, he explained.

Vogt first came under scrutiny because recent text messages from him were found on Raygoza's phone.

The two were tracked to Colorado through their use of the social networking site MySpace. When they were arrested on the shoplifting charge, Raygoza's car was found nearby with his blood and their possessions still in it, prosecutors said.

Bipolar disorder impairs judgment, and on top of that Vogt was a follower who was very controlled by his younger co-defendant, defense attorneys alleged. At last year's trial, it was Garza who said he was the one being controlled.

“The whole idea in this case was to take the car from Mario Raygoza — not to kill Mario Raygoza,” Gross said, explaining that his client wasn't the one who inflicted the fatal wound.